A cocktail umbrella coral reef made by a team of two students, Gretchen Berntson and Jennifer Collins.

You might remember Sayaka Ganz and her incredible reclaimed material sculptures we highlighted a few months ago. Sayaka was so kind to forward some incredible sculptures some of her students completed recently for an assignment in one of her classes at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW). The assignment was simple, create sculptures using 1,000 identical objects or objects in same category that lets viewers see them in a different context than what these objects are originally intended for. Two of the students created interesting seascapes with two distinctly different media and maximized the unique characteristics of the objects. More details and images after the break.

This fascinating sculpture was created by a team of two students, Gretchen Berntson and Jennifer Collins, who took cocktail umbrellas into a wonderful coral reef. “I’m not exactly sure what dialogue led up to the revelation of using cocktail umbrellas, but it was certainly a unique, and very versatile medium to use,” said Collins about the inspiration for the design.

“We decided on the coral reef idea after messing around with the umbrellas, and discovering that they made neat polyp-type creatures, and the ideas just started sprawling from there,” she adds. “We used polystyrene sheets and balls to stick the umbrellas in, and held things together with the broken-off sticks and glue. Polyps attached to brain coral, which had a starfish, and then a crab came along… 2,000 or so umbrellas later, we had a beautiful behemoth of a reef.”

Berntson and Collins definitely hit a home run with this design. The geometric, triangular patterns of the umbrellas were crafted beautifully to create texture and depth. The choice of colors were manipulated masterfully to add to the visual appeal of this piece. We are inspired by the overall look of this piece and beyond the coral representations, the team gets extra credit in our book for the creative invertebrates added to give extra life to the piece.

The next piece was created by a team of eight students: Crystal Judt, Stephanie Bledsoe, Kenny Butler, Zach Hale, Jonathan Maroney, Paul Skeen, Patrick Slusser, and Danielle Stewart. The team used a material that would make any group of kids happy—candy! This team manipulated the shapes and colors of different types of candy to create a fun and whimsical seascape.

“I thought that using candy would not only be an inexpensive material but would give us a wide range of colors and textures to work with,” said Judt about their choice of materials. “With everyone’s help we were able to work together and make a very colorful and fun project.”

The team did a fantastic job creating great depth and maximized the textures of their choice of medium. The soft marshmallows make for a fantastic baby seal and kudos for the jellyfish! This piece is definitely fun and makes you want to take more than a visual bite from it.

We appreciate Sayaka for keeping us in mind and for her students sharing their work our readers. Enjoy more images of the sculptures below.